1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a connector in which the half insertion of terminals is detected by a front holder, and more particularly to a connector in which the half insertion of terminals can be positively detected, and any half-inserted terminal among the plurality of terminals can be easily specified.
2. Description of the Related Art
FIG. 9 is a cross-sectional view showing a conventional connector in which the half insertion of terminals is detected by a front holder.
In this Figure, the connector 100 comprises terminals 101, a housing 110, and the front holder 120.
The housing 110 has cavities 111 for respectively receiving the terminals 101, and a lance 112 for retaining the inserted terminal 101 is provided in the cavity 111 in a projected manner.
A front-holder receiving portion 113 for receiving the front holder 120 is formed in a bottom wall of the cavity 111.
Although not shown in the drawings, the cavities 111, as well as the lances 112 and the front-holder receiving portions 113, are arranged in a juxtaposed manner within the housing 110, and correspond to the plurality of terminals 101, respectively.
The front holder 120 has a plate-like or a comb-like shape corresponding to the front-holder receiving portions 113 formed respectively in the cavities 111.
In this conventional connector, when each terminal 101 is inserted into a proper position in the cavity 111 as shown in FIG. 10(a), the front holder 120 can be inserted into the front-holder receiving portions 113 until it reaches the inner ends of the front holder-receiving portions 113, and the lances 112 are forced up toward the terminals 101 by the front holder 120.
As a result, each lance 112 retains the associated terminal 101, thus holding the terminal 101 in the cavity 111.
When the terminal 101 is not inserted into the proper position in the cavity 111 (that is, the terminal 101 is in a half-inserted condition) as shown in FIG. 10(b), the distal end of the lance 112, pressed by the terminal 101, interferes with the front-holder receiving portion 113, and the front holder 120 can not be inserted as far as the inner end of the front-holder receiving portion 113.
Therefore, the operator can detect the half insertion of the terminal 101.
In the above conventional connector, however, although the half insertion of the terminal 101 can be detected, it is impossible to specify which terminal 101 is in a half-inserted condition since the plurality of terminals 101 are received respectively in the plurality of cavities 111, and thus there has been encountered a problem that much time and labor are required for specifying the half-inserted terminal 101.
More specifically, the half-inserted terminal 101 in the cavity 111 can not be specified from the appearance, and therefore the half-inserted terminal 101 must be found, for example, by pushing the plurality of terminals 101 one by one into the respective cavities 111.